


we can slow down 'cause tomorrow is a mile away

by IzzyAguecheek



Series: this is how it goes, the end credits, they roll [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Bluesey - Freeform, Fluff, Multi, Road Trips, future fic (sort of), i guess, it's literally just Blue having Feelings about leaving Henrietta to go on a road trip, sarchengsey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 08:47:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29872110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IzzyAguecheek/pseuds/IzzyAguecheek
Summary: Blue Sargent has always dreamed of hitting the road.Henrietta gets left behind, and Blue feels the tug of it behind her heart for a painful second. Then, all she can feel is the open road ahead of her, and the vibrant energy of the two boys in the car by her side.(or: Blue Sargent's considerations on leaving, traveling, and finding her place in the world.)
Relationships: Henry Cheng & Richard Gansey III & Ronan Lynch & Adam Parrish & Blue Sargent, Henry Cheng/Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent
Series: this is how it goes, the end credits, they roll [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2194761
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	we can slow down 'cause tomorrow is a mile away

**Author's Note:**

> So huh I really wasn't expecting this to be ready so soon but I drank some wine and it just happened lol
> 
> I proof-read it real quick right after finishing it, but it's unbetaed, and, quite frankly, it's pretty late here and there's the wine factor, so. Let me know if there are any mistakes, and pardon me for my complete and utter lack of knowledge of American geography.
> 
> (fic title taken from EDEN's "End Credits", which is also where I got the series title from.)

Blue Sargent has always dreamed of hitting the road.

She never really thought she’d do it, of course – she was a terrible driver, she didn’t have a car, she didn’t have gas money, she simply didn’t have the  _time_ for it, between school and her jobs and trying to pay for a future she was sure was out of her reach.  And then, she killed the love of her life and messed with sleeping  W elsh kings  and dangerous raven boys , and, suddenly Blue ha s all of those things, plus two very eager companions and a completely new way to see the world, and  it doesn’t take her very long at all to actually  be on the road like  she’s  Jack Kerouac or something. 

On the day they’re supposed to leave, Maura pulls Blue aside before she goes to pick up her boys and gives her a hug, a packet of condoms and a lot of advice on “making smart decisions”.

“Tell Gansey I’ll be calling him every other day”, she says, her tone as stern as Blue has ever heard, which  doesn’t mean that  much  stern at all. “And I expect him to pick up, and I expect him to put you on the line.”

“What she’s saying is”, Calla intervenes  helpfully . “is that he better take good care of you.”

They’re all huddled up in the living room of 300 Fox Way: Calla, Maura, Jimmi, Orla and Gwenllian. Blue gives Calla an annoyed look,  even if she feels fond of her concern.

“I can take care of myself.”

“And of him”, Gwenllian adds, which is a weird show of support, coming fro m her.

Maura doesn’t say anything. She just looks at Blue with those eyes that say _you’re growing up and I hate it but I know I can’t stop it._ Blue holds her gaze despite the knot forming in her stomach, saying  _I know this is hard for you, and I’m going to miss you so much, but_ _you have to trust that I’ll_ _be alright._ The two of them have always been good at this silent communication thing.

“If you’re gonna do drugs, do them responsibly”, Jimmi says, which earns her a disapproving stare from Maura.

“Make sure to eat so you won’t get any smaller”, Orla says, then gives Blue a necklace with a white stone hanging from it. It’s selenite, she explains – it’s supposed to protect her. It’s not really Blue’s style, but she hangs it around her neck all the same. A little piece of home to carry with her,  if nothing else.

Henry and Gansey are waiting for her at Monmout  Manufacture. It’s probably one of the last days Gansey can still say he owns the building, and Blue knows it must be tearing him apart to leave like this, but he just hauls his many bags into the trunk of the Pig II and smiles at her.

“Ready?”, he asks her. Blue returns the smile, and it’s  truly  a wonder, the fact that his face still has the same effect on her after everything.

“As I’ll ever be.”

Henry kisses her cheek on his way to the backseat.

Ronan is there, too, waiting to say goodbye. All of his things have already been moved from Monmouth to the Barns, but Blue can’t help but wonder if he still sees it as his home, in a way. His, and Gansey’s, and – there is the faintest hint of a memory, a whisper of a melody she’s sure she’s heard long ago, but it’s gone before Blue can put her finger on it. Someone else. She’s sure there was someone else, but she can’t quite figure out who. Thinking about it makes her chest hurt, so she turns her attention back to her boys.

“Don’t crash the car, maggot”, Ronan tells her, instead of  _goodbye,_ because this is Ronan Lynch and he doesn’t like acknowledging endings or feelings or  losses , and  _goodbye_ is all of those things  wrapped into one _._ “I won’t dream you a new one.”

“Crashing cars is _your_ specialty”, Gansey recalls. Ronan doesn’t acknowledge him.

“I know how to drive, thank you very much”, Blue replies, and then pulls Ronan in for a hug before he can make a  whole  thing out of it. “Dream us something cool for when we get back.”

If Ronan is surprised by her hug, he doesn’t let it show.  There’s a good chance he isn’t – they’re way past that, now. 

“I’ll think about it.”

Blue knows he’ll do it.

She gets in the driver’s seat of the Pig II and adverts her eyes as Gansey puts a hand on  Ronan’s shoulder and leans in to talk to him. Blue doesn’t think she will ever truly understand the relationship between these two, but she figures the least she can do is give them some privacy. So, she turns to Henry, all sprawled on the backseat, the image of self indulgence with his expensive sunglasses and gelled up hair and Lady Gaga shirt. He’s  _such_ an Aglionby boy, more so than Adam or Ronan or even Gansey, and looking at  hi m makes Blue’s heart swell until it’s pressing against her rib cage.  It’s a good feeling, nothing she would have associated with raven boys a year ago.

“This is gonna be a hell of a ride”, Henry says, and his smile is infectious.

“I sure hope so”, Blue replies. “Go big or go home, right?”

They both know there’s not really a “go home” option, at this point. They haven’t even left, but Blue can feel the distance between her and Henrietta all the way to her fucking bones.

When Gansey finally detaches himself from Ronan and slides into the passenger seat, Blue hits the gas pedal  harder than she’s ever done before. Little practice or not, there’s no room for fear here, just the wind blowing in her hair and the  obnoxious pop songs Henry is playing and the way Gansey is laughing and the ring in Blue’s ear while she watches Henrietta get smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror.

“ Excelsior”, Gansey says, and it’s every minute they’ve ever spent together until now wrapped in a single word, every moment they’ll have from now on. Nine letters, a lifetime.

300 Fox Way gets left behind, and Blue feels the pull of her childhood home, the warmth of a thousand hugs and the frustration of a thousand parental lectures, and gives it all an affectionate pat before letting it go.

Monmouth Manufacture gets left behind, and Blue feels the hollowness in her chest where she knows memories are missing – of a someone, of a someplace, of ghostly fingers in her hair –, but also the ache of the memories she did keep, and somehow it’s worse. She never lived in Monmouth, but it’s worse saying goodbye to it, because  it won’t be there anymore when she gets back. It was the home of a couple of lost boys who were visited every now and then by a lost girl, but it will never be the home of a couple of lost men who are visited every now and then by a lost woman, and somehow she’s just supposed to live with this.

Blue feels all of it. Then, with a last loving look, she lets it go. She has other places to visit her lost boys – men – at from now on.

Henrietta gets left behind, and Blue feels the tug of it behind her heart for a painful second. Then, all she can feel is the open road ahead of her, and the vibrant energy of the two boys in the car by her side.

The road trip is as hectic, fun, crazy, marvelous as she expected it to be. There are moments of uncertainty – the Pig II breaks almost as much as its namesake, Blue gets into a screaming argument with Gansey about paying for snacks, their hotel reservations get canceled somewhere in Texas, all of them miss home like hell on earth. But then, there are moments when Blue is so sure this was the only life possible for her all along that it hurts a little: Gansey smiling excitedly in a museum, Henry dancing wildly in a club where nobody knows them, the three of them snuggled together on the hood of the Pig II on a deserted road to look at the stars and try to figure what their future looks like.

Blue has always wanted to make her own future. Now, she finally feels as though she has a real shot at doing it.

Maura does text every other day, but the frequency of her calls decreases the longer the trio stays away. It’s a bittersweet feeling for Blue, knowing her mom is learning how to live without her daughter the same way Blue has been learning to live without her mom. She is glad Maura has stopped worrying so much, glad she can sleep at night knowing her daughter is safe and sound in the arms of the people she loves, but on the other hand, there are nights all Blue wants is to be back in her bed, with her cut out trees hanging from the walls and her mother reading quietly next to her. 

“What if I wanted to go home?”, Blue asks Gansey and Henry one day. They’re lounging somewhere in Louisiana, in a jazz club that Henry had insisted they  _needed_ to see. It’s not really Blue’s scene, but she appreciated the authenticity of the place. Henry has somehow gotten more than enough pints to drink, and he just laughs at her.

“ Then we’d drop you off on our way to Canada”, he replies easily. “No hard feelings, I promise.”

“We’re not going to Canada”, Gansey mumbles. Henry leans in to kiss him on the cheek.

“Of course not. And Sargent isn’t going back home, because she’s an adventurer and there is so much more yet to be discovered in this great country we live in.”

And that’s it. Blue steals Gansey’s phone to tell Maura she’s okay, then she takes a bunch of pictures of her boys getting shit-faced, and she never  _really_ considers turning around and going home, even if Henrietta appears frequently in her dreams. There is something to be said about living so far away from her roots, she thinks – something about growing and stretching her arms towards the sky, and maybe something about flying. That’s what it feels like, anyway. Like flying. Even when she misses the steadiness of the solid ground.

Adam and Ronan check in when they can. For Adam, this means when he’s not too overwhelmed with classes and homework and his new Harvard friends. For Ronan, it means when his dreams and dream creatures give him enough of a break and he’s in a good enough mood. Both give them updates on their lives, and get selfies and random trivia about the US states in return.

They do video calls, sometimes, all four of them with Henry listening in on it simply because he’s sharing a hotel room with Blue and Gansey, but it’s mostly texting, since their schedules so rarely meet. Ronan is up most of the time these days, but Adam has morning classes and afternoon seminars and nights he needs to use to get his sleep, and Gansey, Blue and Henry alternate between making good use of the daylight to go to beaches and parks and staying up past midnight at bars and clubs. It was hard enough to get them all together when they were all in high school, split only between Aglionby schedule and Mountain View High hours and Adam’s various jobs. When it was all about Glendower and the magic coursing through their veins and through the ley line under their feet. It’s pretty much impossible now, when they no longer have a common goal and their feet walk so many different paths, over so many different lines. 

Gansey still obsesses over ley lines, still carries maps and his journal and writes down carefully everything that might be perceived as an alteration in energetic fields, but it isn’t his main concern anymore. Now, he focuses more on dragging Blue from psychic to psychic all over the country, and then, when all of this proves it’s safe, on kissing her senseless every opportunity he gets. Henry teases them for it, for being that disgusting couple that can’t keep their hands off of each other, until Gansey pushes him down on the backseat of the Pig II and kisses him too, and Blue laughs louder than she can remember ever laughing, so full of joy and love for the both of them that she can’t even bring herself to care about how unusual the arrangement is. She’s just too grateful to have them by her side – Gansey and Henry, yes, but also her family and the rest of her boys, even from far away.

Sometimes, Ronan will call, and Gansey will wander off to have a private conversation with him. Sometimes, Adam will call, and Blue will steal the phone, longing for a conversation with someone that sounds like her and understands how frustrating spending so much time with Aglionby boys can be. It doesn’t matter that they don’t always talk all together. What truly matter is that they all made it – Adam at the university he thought he’d never live to attend to, Ronan at the home he thought he’d be forbidden from setting foot on forever, and Blue and Gansey on the road that wasn’t a corpse road or a ley line, but was just as good and magical in its own way. 

They’re in Florida when it hits Blue just how  _happy_ she is now. They have spent the entire day lounging on the beach, drinking fancy cocktails that Henry had made out of clear alcohol and tropical fruit and chatting about their next stop, and now it’s getting dark. Blue should be feeling like she was running out of time as the sunlight disappears slowly, but she’s curled up against Gansey on a towel laid down on the sand, with Hnery laying less than a feet away from them on his own towel, and she can only think that, circle or straight line, time is on her side now. She isn’t in a hurry to get out. She isn’t in a hurry to get back. 

She has her boyfriend and her maybe-too-close-to-be-just-a-friend by her side, and Adam has just texted saying his week has been amazing, and Ronan has just sent them a picture of Opal chasing the cows around the Barns, and the sunset is beautiful, and Blue has never felt more at peace. The hunger that seemed to have been chewing up her insides has finally settled, leaving behind only a voice that chants  _this this this this this._ This is what she’s been running towards all this time. This is stretching her branches towards the sky and being rewarded by the boldness of it. This is touching the stars,  _finally_ .

“What will we do”, she asks Gansey and Henry, quietly. “When we go back?”

Gansey’s fingers are playing with her hair, brushing it away from her face delicately. His eyes are fixated on the skies above – always upwards, always onward.  _Excelsior._

“I don’t know”, he answers. “I’m sure we’ll figure something out.”

Blue can tell, by his tone, he’s excited about the future, in that almost naive way he’s always had. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t know where he’s going, Gansey is still sure he can get there.

Blue has learned a lot from him. She’s spent a lot of time worrying about the future, cataloging all of the possibilities that were all of her reach and feeling bitter about the many things she could never afford to hold in her hands. Now, though, everything has changed. Now, Blue Sargent is behind the wheel, and she has no reason to believe she can’t make it to her own future.

**Author's Note:**

> I feel like this is a lot less sad than Adam's, but, oh well, it's just the Vibes I get from Blue. I mean, she's road tripping the States with her two boyfriends. There's not an awful lot to be upset about there.
> 
> Next will be Gansey, probably, because I find Ronan ridiculously hard to write, but well. Who knows, right?


End file.
